Return £425m of Olympics underspend to good causes, urges DSC
Howard Lake | 13 June 2012 | News
The Directory of Social Change (DSC) is calling on the government to return hundreds of millions pounds that will not be spent on the London Olympics to the Big Lottery Fund and ultimately to charities and community organisations.
The Department of Culture, Media and Sport today announced that “The overall funding package for the Games remains at £9.298 billion with £476 million of uncommitted contingency available.”
Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme this morning, Hugh Robertson MP, Minister for Sport and the Olympics said that “all being well we should be able to hand half a billion pounds back to the Treasury”.
The DSC’s Big Lottery Refund campaign aims to get £425 million of the money that was taken from the Big Lottery Fund to pay for the Olympics refunded to the Big Lottery Fund.
Jay Kennedy, Head of Policy at the Directory of Social Change, said: “It will be an utter outrage – and verging on money laundering – if lottery revenues raided by the Government to fund the Olympics go back to the Treasury. This money was taken away from supporting vulnerable people and communities across this country at a time when they needed it most. Government needs to keep its promises and do the right thing – any underspend must be used to refund the Lottery as soon as possible.”
@BigLotteryRfnd on Twitter
The campaign has been busy using Twitter to promote its argument. Some of the tweets referred to Dame Suzi Leather’s valedictory speech on leaving the Charity Commission where she said that the biggest risk facing charities was financial shortfalls.
‘Charities underfunded’ say @ChtyCommission . ‘Olympics overfunded’ say @DCMS @2012GovPress … If only there was something we could do…
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— Big Lottery Refund (@BigLotteryRfnd) June 13, 2012
Dealing with a £500M underspend – Let’s ask for £425M for @BigLotteryRfnd at #PMQs! Tweet your MP: tweetminster.co.uk/mps
— Big Lottery Refund (@BigLotteryRfnd) June 13, 2012
‘Charities underfunded’ say @ChtyCommission . ‘Olympics overfunded’ say @DCMS @2012GovPress … If only there was something we could do…
— Big Lottery Refund (@BigLotteryRfnd) June 13, 2012
www.biglotteryrefund.org.uk
About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.